Questions tagged [licensing]
Licensing refers to applying a license to an area of software. Only use this tag if your question concerns the application of a license to an area of interest. If your question concerns a specific license, use the tag that corresponds to your license. For more general questions, use this tag.
1,288
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Include MySQL Connector/J in a commercial product [duplicate]
There are a few questions about MySQL licensing already out there, but none of them have a definitive "yes" or "no" answer, so with the risk of being flagged as "duplicate&...
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Which SPDX-License-Identifier should I use for "Public Domain"?
My concrete example is IANA's tzdb version 2023c. As specified in https://data.iana.org/time-zones/tzdb-2023c/LICENSE the case is clear "if the files date.c, newstrftime.3, and strftime.c are ...
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Can I notarize my MacOS package that contains LGPL dynamic library?
I am commercial software developer, and my piece of software dynamically calls the LGPL v2.1/LGPL v3 library. Am I allowed to notarize my installation package that includes LGPL dynamic loaded library ...
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Do people/companies using my library need to include my OSS licensing notice? [duplicate]
I made a library with which I distribute an opensource-licences-readme.txt file disclosing which open-source projects I have leveraged and including their copyright notices and other required info.
I ...
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3
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1
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343
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Is there a license that explicitly exempts AI from all conditions?
Are there any FOSS licenses that explicitly allow the use of the software as AI training data with no restrictions, and explicitly disclaim any copyright interest in the output of the AI?
I'm ...
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3
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I want to receive contributions to my project but have an agreement with third parties that wants to use it
I have a client that wants to opensource their project to receive contributions and leave the code as a public good. The software might be used by individual institutions, meaning each institution ...
2
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License that grants free use for non commercial purposes but asks for some money for commercial use [duplicate]
I have developed material to teach a programming class. It is an old style class, thought for a teacher teaching to students, with slides and examples.
The material is made of a website, where the ...
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Is there a license like MIT that explicitly forbids the use of AI?
I am aware that the licenses of e.g. code on Github are currently not observed when training AIs and that there are licenses such as AGPL that require the code to be disclosed. But is there already a ...
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How do I require commercial users of the output of my software to give attribution?
I've got some code which produces some output files, this project is open source under GPLv3. I've also got some people reaching out to me and asking if they can use the output files (they don't care ...
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Choosing appropriate license for my project [duplicate]
I’m planning to write an open-source OS. So these are the thing I want to include with my license:
For non-commercial use, I give users unlimited rights to copy, distribute, edit my OS, but they must ...
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276
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Using OpenSSL in Visual Studio project
I have created a project for an application written in c++ that uses OpenSSL to implement encryption algorithms. I posted the project on GitHub, it is currently a private repo. There is an Apache 2.0 ...
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114
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License for JavaScript which doesn't permit minification? [closed]
I'm writing a JavaScript library and am wondering how I could license it such that developers/user:
must include the license (or a link to it)
can't minify the source code, but must include it as-is
...
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3
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1
answer
125
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LGPL 3 and Java package renaming
In my company, we have a library that makes use of a 3rd party library with an LGPL3 license.
Although our library does not extend or modify any of the 3rd party library's code, it provides some ...
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If I use AGPL software (hosted on my environment) to populate DB data w/o any code changes, should I open the code of my software that does DB calls?
If I use AGPL service w/o code changes to populate data in the Mongo database and then retrieve this data from DB via my own-written service, should I open-source the code of my service? My own-...
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Could a CLA be avoided by simply specifying in the license a particular owner who may grant closed source use? [duplicate]
One of the main purposes of a CLA (contributor license agreement), as I understand it, is to allow some owner of the software to have full rights to relicense the code if desired. This is rather ...
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What happens if I don't attribute for a library that has MIT or Apache license?
I develop a commerical app in android studio and in my project I use some libraries that have MIT or Apache license.
What could possibly happens if I don't attribute the libraries that I downloaded ...
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1
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Licensing of my code when using a GPL-licensed program for code coverage
The program I'm planning to use for obtaining the code coverage of my tests (OpenCppCoverage) is licensed under GPL v3.0, which implies some obligations for those who modify or redistribute this code ...
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Who owns code in a GitHub organization?
I made a project in a GitHub organization and made some commits there. Nobody else touched the repository. Since the default licence on GitHub is all rights reserved, do I maintain all rights to the ...
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If somebody else distributes my GPL program without the source code, am I liable to fulfil written source requests?
What I am asking is: can other people create work / obligations for me to respond to written requests to package up and send some physical media (and collect a reasonable fee, etc.) for the source ...
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Can my open-source package adhere to GPL/LGPL v3 if it has a closed-source dependency?
My plugin dll depends on the presence of Microsoft Excel on a client computer. Excel is not part of the OS. The dependency is a 2 way transfer of data, the dll I created only works if run from inside ...
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4
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Is there a way to only permit open-source mods for my video game to stop people from stealing code or at least enforce proper attribution?
I want to prevent mod developers from stealing code from other mod developers in my game. The best way that I know how is to only ever support mods that are open-source. I know about the SteamWorkshop ...
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3
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1
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140
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BSD-3 Licensing in Framework's Documentation
I am a Flutter developer, and it's documentation code samples are licensed under BSD-3, does that mean when learning from it and then applying that to my code I should include the license in my code (...
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305
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Permissive license that prevents copyleft [duplicate]
I like permissive style licenses (e.g. BSD3) and dislike copyleft ones (e.g. GPL).
I want to develop some OSS permissively, but I want to prevent people from forking it and relicensing it with ...
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3
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1
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474
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Alpine Linux and package versioning: can the license change in a release patch?
Looking at https://pkgs.alpinelinux.org/packages, almost every single package in Alpine Linux is versioned as a.b.c-rd where a b c d are numbers, d is the "patch release" of the version a.b....
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2
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Is there a "Free Software Philosophy Advertising" permissive license?
I used to think that spreading the Free Software philosophy through advertising, as companies usually do, would be more moderate and more acceptable to people (more infectious) than spreading the Free ...
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3
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1
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142
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Removing font files from Font Awesome - SIL OFL license
I would like to add to my Website the package "Font Awesome". I would like to use only some font files (which are covered by the SIL OFL 1.1 license) and the necessary CSS to use it.
It is ...
user29323
4
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1
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103
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Is there a license similar to the CC BY-SA license that is copyleft but allows source-unreadable derivatives to be released?
I'm looking for a license that's similar to the CC BY-SA license that allows people to use my code for whatever purpose as long as they license derivative works under the same license. The distinction ...
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63
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What constitutes source code plagiarism? [closed]
I want to know if a software developer can potentially be sued for writing everyday boilerplate code or similar functions at 2 separate software jobs with different clients.
Suppose a software ...
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270
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What is the best-practice for commercial vendors who build their offering on top of Open-Source software?
My company is currently developing a commercial software for our clients (it will be offered both under a commercial license for SaaS and also a binary for on-site private network usage). This ...
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1
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117
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Why UNIX is not open source?
Why Dennis Ritchie created UNIX under BSD licence if he was rooting for open source?
I'm exploring UNIX history and can't understand why it was not open source. I understand that it was developed in ...
4
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1
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Does the Creative Commons CC BY-SA 4.0 license make it mandatory to share derived work?
Let's say that I'm using art works protected by the Creative Commons CC BY-SA 4.0 license. I then modify the art works so that they fit my personal requirements and include them in a commercial ...
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4
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Which license suits best when you want users to contribute to your code and not just take it as free beer
Which License is best suited for my open source project. I am developing a web app (a template like) that has potential use in real life applications but also learning outcomes. I would like people to ...
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Is the Open Gaming License a type of open source license?
Wizards of the Coast (publishers of the Dungeons and Dragons desktop role playing game) have for years operated under the Open Gaming License.
The License: This License applies to any Open Game ...
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I believe that the License decision diagram section of Codeberg.org is wrong [duplicate]
As title. Can anyone help me confirming whether my intuition about whether the section "License decision diagram" of on Codeberg.org could be wrong? Quoted those lines from the link:
Do you ...
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If a CC BY-SA V4.0 dictionary is used to look up meanings of words, is the resulting translation a derivative work?
This is a follow-up question to my previous one. I'm considering writing a manual translation software, where the end user will be writing the entire translation themselves, but the software could ...
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If I create software that can leverage a CC BY-SA data set, do I have to license the software under the same license?
I'm writing a translation assist & dictionary-like software to assist in translating Japanese to English. To help with this, dictionary datasets in XML format by Electronic Dictionary Research and ...
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If code is published in two places with different licenses and don't know which is the original
If some code is published in two different places by different people, one under the Apache license and one under no license, and I have no way to know which one is the original author (one of them ...
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How to effectively communicate the license of database content?
I'm working on a project make some New Zealand government data available to the public under the Creative Commons license. The access to the data will be directly to a PostgreSQL database (read-only, ...
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1
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639
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How should I license my software if it links statically with glibc?
I have no experience with licensing. I used GitHub to put a license in one of my repositories, which basically uses C. As I didn't want to impose restrictions (the code is a very small utility, I don'...
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5
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Are there any software licenses that allow for everything but changing the license or dual-licensing?
I would like to allow users of my code to make derivatives, but disallow derivatives from imposing any restrictions on the usage of my code. Is there an existing license that would fit this ...
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Does modified server code, used in public website development, which is originally available under GPL2 have to be released to the public?
To be precise, I am referring to MySql source code which is available under GPL2. I want to make certain modifications in the code which is actually for some custom requirement.
The modified MySql ...
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2
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267
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What to put in header copyright notice after total conversion of library that didn't have license headers?
I want to convert a C# library (not written by myself) licensed under Apache License v2 to C++.
The original C# library has a LICENSE file with the Apache license information, however the individual ...
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QT on windows - limitations, restrictions, commercial products
I've downloaded the qt online installer from: https://www.qt.io/download-open-source to develop on Windows.
My question is: as long as we respect LGPL are we forced to buy a commercial license (for ...
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Does license prohibition of illicit / malicious use or modification clash with GPL's freedom to modify?
I am building a decentralized community service, where it is critical for each client to run a "legitimate" build version in order for the service to operate properly. The client versions do ...
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4
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Why does the GPL not specify a jurisdiction or choice of law clause?
tl;dr version Unlike most software licenses, the GPL (at least version 3.0) does not contain a choice of law provision. Why is this, and what provisions are in place to adjudicate disputes in the ...
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467
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Use of GPL licensed code in unit test source for verifying the operation of non GPL program that analyses source code
Say I have a program (not GPL compatible) that performs static analysis against source code through some pattern matching, similar to a linter.
One way I could write unit tests for my program is to ...
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50
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Is it legitimate to extract data from Java VM Specification document?
I'm planning to write a bytecode viewer for Java 17 classfile,
and distribute my work under some permissive license.
In order to keep consistent my implemenation,
I'd like to link my code to
Chapter 4
...
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2
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1
answer
64
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Confusion regarding the term source in GPLv3
I was reading https://www.gnu.org/licenses/gpl-3.0.html to understand about GPLv3 but it seems I am more confused with the term source.
Is the word source referring to source of the library or my ...
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Is it legitimate to include Java VM Specification document in my derived work?
I'm planning to make a bytecode viewer for Java 17 classfiles,
and distribute my work under some permissive license.
For convenience of implemenation, I'd like to include
JVMS Chapter 4. The class ...
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13
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1
answer
3k
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MariaDB: How can the license being held by a foundation forbid Oracle from buying MariaDB?
I was looking though :
Learning MySQL and MariaDB
[ Russell J.T. Dyer / O’Reilly / 2015 ]
where I came across a licensing Issue.
It says [ Preface Section ] :
"The software license, though, is ...
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